NEWARK-BASED COALITION LAUNCHES “CLOSE THE GAP” CAMPAIGN TO BOOST VOTER PARTICIPATION – InsiderNJ

NEWARK-BASED COALITION LAUNCHES “CLOSE THE GAP” CAMPAIGN TO BOOST VOTER PARTICIPATION

Effort Will Register 20% of the 25,000 Eligible but Unregistered Voters in Newark

 

NEWARK, NJ — A coalition of Newark-based organizations is launching an initiative to “close the gap” between voter turnout in Newark and neighboring communities in Essex County. In the 2018 General Election, the voter turnout rate in Newark was just 40%, the lowest of any municipality in Essex County, compared to 56% for the remainder of the county.

 

“We are going to break the vicious cycle that sees entire communities of unregistered citizens become non-voters who are then ignored by political campaigns, which in turn leaves them uninterested in the electoral process,” said Project Ready Executive Director Shennell McCloud. “Along with our partners, we will close the gap of unregistered voters in Newark by 20% and empower citizens in our traditionally underserved communities to vote at rates comparable to more affluent cities in Essex County.”

In Newark, approximately 25,000 adults are eligible to vote but are unregistered. To close the gap by 20%, the coalition will register at least 5,000 unregistered voters between November 2019 and March 2020. Project Ready will also mail voter registration forms with the return postage paid to over 1,500 Newarkers to make updating registrations as easy as possible. In early 2019, Project Ready led a campaign to register Newarkers to vote by mail – this week, new data showed that more than 240,000 New Jerseyans voted by mail in the 2019 election.

 

The initiative is being led by Project Ready in partnership with Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc., Newark Trust for Education, La Casa De Don Pedro, NJ Re-Entry, Youth Opportunity Network, Rutgers University- Newark Democrats, C.U.R.A., Inc., BRICK Education Network, The Gem Project, NEED, Youth Media Symposium, Deaf Advocates Group, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc, NJ Children’s Foundation, After-School All-Stars New Jersey, Book-A-Youngin, and Braven.

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